NOTEBOOK: Fenway Fun Not Ruined By Loss

BOSTON—In the third inning of yesterday’s game against Northeastern, shortstop Jeff Stoeckel blasted a pitch off the fence in left field. The senior sprinted toward first, but as he turned the corner toward second he quickly retreated and settled for a single.

It is basic baseball knowledge that a ball off the wall should give the batter an extra-base hit, however, the wall that Stoeckel hit in left was no basic wall—it was the Green Monster in Boston’s historic Fenway Park.

Stoeckel’s liner thudded off the Monster right back to the left fielder, who heaved it to second base. The senior quickly shuffled back to first and realized that he had been a part of one the intricacies of the nation’s oldest Major League stadium.

“Stoeckel left his mark on the wall,” captain Matt Vance said. “He can always say he has a little indent on the Green Monster out there.”

The contest at Fenway was the consolation game of the Beanpot Tournament. Last week, Red Sox officials cancelled the game, but later in the week the management reversed its decision and gave the Crimson and the Huskies an experience to remember.

“As much as I’m a Yankees fan, it’s still a dream come true to go out and

pitch at Fenway,” senior Shawn Haviland said. “You’re sitting in the same place out in

the bullpen where Papelbon warms up. It’s awesome. It’s the Holy Grail of baseball.”

In the second inning, Harvard jumped out to a 5-1 lead, but Northeastern came back to take a 6-5 advantage in the fifth. Though Vance tied the game up in the eighth with an RBI single, the Crimson ultimately suffered the defeat when Mike Lyon’s infield single brought home the winning run in the bottom of the tenth inning. The 7-6 loss was disappointing, but the team still relished the opportunity to play at Fenway.

“It’s always nice to get a great game at Fenway,” Harvard coach Joe Walsh said. “It’s a thrill to play in this ball park. It doesn’t ever wear out.”

FOLLOW THE LEADER

The Crimson has struggled to score all season, but this past week the bats have caught on fire. A major reason for this offensive resurgence is that players who leadoff innings are getting on base. Harvard has scored at least six runs in the last four games and during that stretch, leadoff hitters have an on-base percentage of .457.

“There are statistics out there that say that like 75% of the runs scored happen when you get the leadoff guy on,” Vance said. “So, that’s huge for us.”

The Crimson scored in the first, second, and eighth against the Huskies and in each inning, Harvard got a man on base with no outs. Getting runners on early allowed the Crimson to be aggressive on the base paths.

“We’re trying to run early, trying to put some pressure on them when we have the lead,” Walsh said. “If we get that early guy on in college baseball you got a real good chance to score.”

Harvard stole four bases on the day, but also had three failed attempts, two of which came in the third inning.

A PART OF THE PARK

Since there aren’t too many opportunities to play at Fenway, the Crimson players wanted to enjoy the experience and be a part of history. The team arrived early, joked Vance, so that the squad could grab the Red Sox’s home dugout. Harvard also wanted to find a way to leave its mark on the stadium.

“Kind of like write a letter, leave it in the dugout for the Red Sox to find when they come back here...we were actually talking about that,” Vance said.

Even though the team didn’t write the note, the players planned out other ways to take full advantage of the game.

“If anybody had hit a home run today, they were going to walk to first base and just have a blast,” Vance said.

The Crimson would have liked to come away with the victory, but the time spent at the park was in no way blemished by the loss.

“We’re out here to have fun right now,” Vance said. “It’s a tough loss, but everybody had a lot of fun today. We’re going to walk away with our heads up.”

—Staff writer Jake I. Fisher can be reached at jifisher@fas.harvard.edu.